My young adult daughter and I will be doing a short stopover in Iceland on the way home from Scandinavia in mid July. I'm having trouble figuring out what is realistic to fit into our short time there with partial days on our arrival and departure days.
We fly into Iceland from Norway arriving at 3:50 pm on the 17th. I have a rental car reserved already, and I have an AirBnB apartment in Kopavogur outside Reykjavik booked for 4 nights. This can be changed if necessary, although it was so reasonably priced and nice looking that I'd like to keep it for at least part of the time. We have three full days (18th, 19th, 20th), then we depart Iceland at 7:45 p.m. on the 21st, so we have a fairly big part of that day. We'd like to do a Golden Circle day trip and see the South Coast preferably with an overnight. The Westman Islands also look really interesting, as does Snaefellsnes. We'd like to spend some time in Reykjavik, but that definitely is not the priority, and we'll do either the Blue Lagoon or the Sky Lagoon (which is a short walk from the apartment). We love hiking, but don't feel the need to do any other organized activities like glacier walking or snorkeling or anything like that.
My questions mostly have to do with how to fit in at least the Golden Circle day trip and the South Coast trip with an overnight. Ideally, the South Coast overnight would be at the beginning or end of the trip, allowing us to stay in the apartment for three days straight. Is it a bad idea to stay somewhere on the South Coast before flying out on the 21st? Right now Google Maps says it's about 3 hours from Vik to the airport, but is that realistic? Would it be worth driving out to the South Coast and spending the night there after we fly in if we're getting the car around 4:30 or 5:00 pm? Are there more efficient ways to do this, and possibly to fit in the Westman Islands? Thanks for any ideas!